The Region of Waterloo has completed another stop on its route toward rapid transit.

Last week, the Ministry of Environment gave the OK to the region’s transit project environmental assessment process, green-lighting next steps toward construction in 2014.

Thomas Schmidt, the region’s director of transportation, said it was good news.

“It’s great,” Schmidt said. “It means the EA process is done.

“We’re ready to move forward to design and construction.”

The provincial government has pledged $300 million toward the $818-million cost of the light rail transit in Kitchener and Waterloo, plus bus rapid transit for Cambridge.

The federal government has pledged up to $265 million with local taxpayers funding the difference.

“This is an important step forward in bringing expanded public transit options to the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge region,” Minister of Infrastructure and Transportation Bob Chiarelli said.

Schmidt said planning was ongoing and a request for qualifications would be issued in October to begin the process of hiring a contractor.

Three top applicants would be chosen from that pool and a request for proposals would then be issued before final selection was completed, Schmidt said.

How those RFPs would be weighted — cost, previous experience on similar projects and so on — was not yet determined.

In February, regional councillors voted in favour of hiring a private company to design, build, operate, finance and maintain the LRT for its first few years of operation.

Consulting firm Parsons Brinkerhoff Halsall was hired earlier this month and will receive nearly $16.6 million over the next three years to provide oversight services around the project.

“Waterloo Region has done a good job consulting with interested parties, responding to concerns, protecting the environment and putting together a public transit project which will serve commuters well,” Minister of the Environment Jim Bradley said in a press release.

Moving forward Schmidt said public consultation would continue.

“We will still be having open houses or some consultation,” he said. “There’s still details to be worked out.

“We need to work with all the businesses to minimize the impact on them.”